Change Is Good… Yeah!?

WED., DEC. 22, 1998, 9:40 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

This is a time in this culture when change is valued… and it “happens” rather often. With this fact goes the one that you are less and less desirous of change… captivated by it. It is comfortable to have most conditions remain as they are, even those that, objectively, seem to need change. You affirmed in your last years as a health educator that adaptation to change is a hallmark of good health… and you have seen yourself as a rather good adapter. Is this so? Will it continue?

This year and a half, almost, of Emeritus status has brought about some changes, certainly, and, mostly, these have been pleasant. You haven’t yearned for 3 or more classes a term, and the responsibilities these entailed. You feel satisfied with the impact you made in some of your students’ lives over the years, and you are particularly pleased that you reintroduced the spiritual as a vital dimension of health enough years before you hung it up so that many remember you for this contribution.

You are a fortunate human in that you can look back over a 48 year career and judge that each of your three sites for teaching was “just right” for your development in each “era”. Not many in your culture can affirm this as positively as you can. As you see it, the balance of sites and of courses taught was just about perfect, with your final years spent in organizing and conducting all courses of high interest to you. This is ideal, but not all professors have this enjoyment.

Spiritually, your life has changed, as it should have, from being just a faithful, institutional Christian, to one born again but not particularly evangelistic, to one “born yet again” as one chosen by Me, Holy Spirit, to hear Me and write My Teachings… one almost comfortable in being what I call “a Presbyterian mystic”. Our Ruminations are a low-key contribution to the spiritual life of some number, among your readers… and… you’d better get crackin’ on this last “number” of 1998.

You do see some value in the new electronic technologies, but you feel no strong need to change your life to one that is “on-line”. This is always a possibility, but it may continue to seem “not worth the effort”. As you might expect (and many others in your culture would not) I am not agog with enthusiasm for this computer age. I see almost as much harm to the earth as I want it to be as I see positive progress. I certainly am not fully in favor of all that you humans are able to … and actually… do. Yet I do see some who grow spiritually with modern electronics in assistance. Thus, I am not troubled by these developments, for I see them as both an aid… and a stumbling block… to the development of spirit. I do not long for life as it was in Biblical times, but neither am I giddy about marvelous “progress”. I usually do allow more than I cause, directly.

My feelings would be quite comparable when I comment on the changes ahead for your present church home. It is “a good” that you will experience a change in pastors. In your “work situations” you could happily and productively be in this place for 32 years, for the students were forever changing. Though your church congregation has experienced a good deal of change in the past 10 years there also are plenty of you who have some need for a change in this spiritual leader. That shall come, but not without its pains and divisiveness.

Of course you and Lenore could be “those who change”, and you certainly see that it would be easy to return to the “little church on the hill”. Such a change would not be without its pains and drawbacks, but you rightly see this as a viable option.

There continue to be changes in the earth scene… some military and political, some physical and “atmospheric”. There continue to be wars and “rumors of wars”, as in the time of Isaiah. Some things change… some are more repetitive.